Biffo, Gannon, Larry and Octav1us reminisce about the BASIC programming guide that came with the ZX Spectrum. That is, until their carefully crafted segment gets interrupted by a certain furious pig...

If you're unable to make it to Digitiser Live on July 20th - though get in fast if you do want to come, as tickets are almost gone - you've another chance to see most of the Digi team doing things on stage in June!

Along with the one and only Ashens, myself, Larry Bundy Jr and Paul Gannon will be competing against one another at a variety of video game challenges at Steve McNeil's brilliant and highly-recommended Video Game Game Show Show on June 18th. You'll get to see first-hand just how terrible I am games!

Tickets are available here... 

In the meantime... gorge yourself on this week's letters. 

​​If you'd like to appear here, or you've something you'd like me to give some attention to in our occasional Plug Zone, please send your dank emails to this place here: digitiser2000@gmail.com​​​​

It's fair to say that modern game covers generally adhere to a pretty strict formula, in comparison to the games from 30-odd years ago.

​Whether that's for better or worse is for you to decide, but here's a gallery of ZX Spectrum classics reimagined as PlayStation 4 games...

Originally a backer-exclusive ep, Octav1us and Gameplay Jenny interview Mr Biffo and Mr Hairs about the earliest days of Digitiser on Teletext. Learn secrets about Bamboozle, our favourite characters, and more!

I've got a couple of games on the go at the minute, both of them for Nintendo's Switch.

I'm not going to bother reviewing them on here, because one of them - Monster Boy And The Cursed Kingdom - came out last year, and the other - Cuphead - might be new to Switch, but it was released on the Xbox One 18 months ago.

Nevertheless, they share, in ways both superficial and profound, certain similarities. They're both, technically, platform games, and they're both absolutely gorgeous.

And yet one of them makes me want to give my Switch a big lick, and thank it for being there for me, and the other makes me want to hurl it out of the window.

And then jump out of the window, and stamp up and down on it over and over and over.

​And then dissolve the bits in acid, so that I'm never tempted to play it again.

I've never worked in marketing, and - having never had a cocaine habit - nor would I want to.

Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure I could do a better job at selling products than the po-faced, Oooh-I'm-all-grown-up, tedium that passes for video game advertising these days. 

Still, as dull as most game ads are these, they're nothing next to the kaleidoscopic cascade of hyperactive juvenilia which appeared in games mags 20-odd years ago.

Certainly, if I was ever fortunate to own a time machine, I'd travel back to the 90s and make a small fortune doing a better job than the cack-brained idiots who were doing the ads back then. 

Here are some examples of what I'm talking about. 

Appropriately for a video about the failed ZX Spectrum Vega+ handheld, our attempts to talk about it are derailed entirely by the unexpected appearance of a certain furious pig...

​Featuring Mr Biffo, Paul Gannon, Octav1us and Larry Bundy Jr.

A short while back, I put together an article looking at some of Sony's more blatant attempts to shock and bewilder with its various PlayStation ad campaigns.

Since then, I have become aware that if you search for random stock images, slap a logo on the bottom, and slightly turn down the saturation, the end result is virtually indistinguishable from any of Sony's wilfully obscure efforts.

Here are some examples of what I'm talking about.

Yesterday, we discussed why our beloved European Super Nintendo was infinitely superior to the American Super Nintendo.

Today we shall investigate the two different names for Sega's 16-bit console - known as the Mega Drive or Genesis, depending upon which side of the Atlantic you squatted.

Why did the Mega Drive - the name it launched with in Japan in 1989 - get called something different when it came out in the US, despite Mega Drive clearly being one of the best names for a games console that anybody has ever been arsed to think of?

It was all down to trademark. In America, Mega Drive Systems Inc - a manufacturer of computer storage solutions - already had the name Mega Drive in their pocket. Thus, they went for Genesis, as a way of suggesting that the console would mark the real dawn of home video gaming.

Admittedly, Genesis isn't the worst name in the world, but it already had other associations, dependent on whether you were a creationist or a prog rock fan - neither of which were cool or edgy.

But which was better? SPOILER: It was "Mega Drive", obviously.

​And here's why. 

Usually when I'm asked for my favourite console of all time, I say the Super Nintendo.

It boasts a catalogue of games that is hard to argue against, they still look great after al these years, and Nintendo didn't ruin everything with loads of unecessary add-ons. Indeed, when the company decided that SNES games needed a bit more oomph, they put extra hardware inside the cartridges.

It's not just about the games though. Part of the reason I still love the SNES is because of the SNES itself; it's the most aesthetically-pleasing console ever. It felt nice to hold, to touch, and to look at. You could take the cartridges to bed with you without worrying you'd slice your eyelids open in the night. 

Sure, living in the UK meant that the games weren't as fast, and they had black borders, but if we're talking the cosmetic appeal of the host hardware... we won that battle hands-down.

And here's why.

Do you ever feel like you're not entirely the same as everyone else, that the world is depraved and full of weird perverts? I know we're not supposed to kinkshame, but if you've ever had the gross misfortune to stumble upon the world of fan fiction you'll have been exposed to some of the darker, more messed-up, elements of humanity. And, well, I don't care what you say; some of that stuff just ain't normal. 

Nowhere is this more evident than the troublingly popular sub-genre of erotic Sonic The Hedgehog fan creations. Here's a brief sampling of the weirder, more awful, examples of amateur storytelling featuring the asexual hedgehog. 

Please be aware... this gets rather NSFW. 

For one night only, Digitiser The Show will be coming to you live - on stage! An evening of comedy, gaming, and utter nonsense, full of games, skits, special guests,and old hardware, you'll not want to miss it. And if you do miss it - you'll kick yourself... IN THE FACE.

This extravaganza will take place on Saturday 20th of July at 7pm(doors open at 6.30pm prompt), at the Elliott Hall, Harrow Arts Centre, Hatch End, Harrow, HA5 4EA www.harrowartscentre.com

Spaces are strictly limited!

CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS. 

Every story has a beginning...

Do you remember when the first trailer for The Phantom Menace came out, and we all got really excited about that srapline, and then Darth Vader turned out to be a annoying little kid with a bowl haircut who couldn't act, and said stuff like "Mom, you said that the biggest problem in the universe is no one helps each other"? 

​Yeah, that was disappointing wasn't it? Not least given that in the very next film he murdered some indigenous children, and then some more kids in the film after that, and then choked his wife.

That's literally like doing a sequel to, I dunno, Pinocchio where a grown-up Pinocchio deliberately tells a lie so that his nose shoots through the eye socket of a Somalian orphan, and then another sequel where he bites his wife's thumb off and sends cuttings of his pubic hair to celebrities.

But anyway. It's not just intergalactic, child-murdering, super villains who had a less-than-venerable origin story. Here are ten huge games companies, and the games they started with.